[Virginia AU] we rose up from the falling waters

[nerves_of_ice]

A little over a week goes by, and as it does Bucky falls into a pattern, slow but sure. He wakes with Sharon in the mornings, shares coffee and something that suffices for breakfast, then works a little on searches and checking contacts and sources from other time zones and locations. Mid-morning finds him at the Task Force offices with Riley and his team. Early afternoon finds him meeting with Ross, if there's any reason to; mid-afternoon he checks in with Steve, with Tony, or with Natasha before he goes back to tracing rumors and hints.

Today's different, though. Today is Sharon's first day back at work after her suspension, and Bucky's determined not to do a single damn thing that might possibly make it difficult for her.

Comments

[nerves_of_ice]

Shuri grins at her. "You are very welcome. I have never had anyone bring me a broken white girl to fix before."

Ross makes a slightly strangled noise at that and she turns on him. "Why do you always make that sound? It is true, is it not?"

Bucky huffs out a breath that might be laughter, which fades as his phone vibrates. "Just a second," he murmurs, and gets up to go to the other side of the room and respond.

[from_the_outside]

As Bucky moves across the room, Nakia enters, a bag in one hand and her brilliant smile lighting her face. "Don't get up," she tells Sharon, and comes to hug her, warm and tight.

"Do not do that again," she scolds, lightly, though Sharon can feel her arms tightening protectively.

"Well, maybe don't stand in the way of bullets," Sharon tells her, but she can't help squeezing her friend tight. If she'd been a little slower, who knows what might have happened? "Anyway, it's not like I need more than one life debt from you."

[nerves_of_ice]

He can hear them talking quietly behind him, but all Bucky's attention at the moment is on the phone and the message from Natasha.

Found him. Tony's in pursuit.

Bucky blows out a harsh breath and texts back, good. keep me in the loop? He follows it up with, Sharon's out of surgery. She's going to be fine. Will have her call later. Tell Steve.

The series of emoji Natasha sends him at that makes him chuckle aloud. Bucky shoves his phone back in his pocket and goes to rejoin the others.

[from_the_outside]

Nakia straightens from their hug to smile at Bucky. "Sergeant," she greets him, and glances at him and Ross. "May I borrow her for a moment? She'll need to get dressed before we go to the Citadel."

[nerves_of_ice]

"Sure," Bucky says. "But before you go -- Klaue's been located." He sees Ross stiffen out of the corner of his eye and turns to make sure he's addressing all of them.

"Tony's in pursuit now. We'll have an update soon."

[from_the_outside]

"I will tell my brother," Shuri says, tapping at her bracelet of beads as Sharon gets up from her seat and follows Nakia into a tastefully appointed restroom – more like a powder room with a separate space for a shower and toilet – off the lounge. Her friend pulls out a pair of light trousers and a loose shirt, along with a pair of sandals, and offers them to her.

"I've filled the closet in your room with other things," she says, as Sharon goes into the shower area to change. "But I thought you would prefer comfort while recuperating."

"I like the comfort," Sharon tells her, slipping out of the robe and into the clothes, "but honestly it doesn't feel like I'm doing much recuperating. The medicine here is a miracle."

[nerves_of_ice]

"Where? How? I need details," Ross snaps, rapid-fire, while Shuri waits for her call to be answered.

"I gave you what I had." Bucky gives him a patient stare. "Natasha did her surveillance thing. Tony's got the intel and he's going after him now. One of them will call me with any news. I'm not going to bug him while he's mid-op."

[from_the_outside]

By the time she and Nakia come back out, Shuri is chatting quietly with a hologram of T'Challa that floats over her wrist.

"Have Stark contact General Okoye directly, once he has apprehended Klaue," T'Challa is telling her. "Shuri, set up a line of communication for them."

Shuri nods and looks at Bucky as T'Challa's hologram disappears. "Give me Stark's number, before you go."

[nerves_of_ice]

Bucky calls up the contact on his phone and holds it out for her. Privately, he entertains himself with imagining those two encountering each other. They'll probably end up speaking a whole new technobabble.

[from_the_outside]

Shuri makes a note and taps away on her beads, and Nakia gestures to the rest of them. "Come," she tells them. "I will bring you to your rooms. I'm sure you all want to rest."

Sharon's not sure she's got that right. Ross and Bucky both look exhausted, but they currently share a similar determined set to their jaw that makes her think neither of them is likely to take it easy until Klaue's been found.

But Shuri waves them off and Nakia starts making for the door, so Sharon follows. She finds she's impatient to see what else Wakanda might have been hiding from the world for all this time.

[nerves_of_ice]

Nakia leads them back down the hallway, but not in the direction of the elevator. Instead, she takes a long curving ramp that opens up on a platform which itself is open to the mine beyond, with one of the maglev trains waiting on a track there.

"I must ask you to remain in your rooms once we arrive," she tells them. "Your presence will not be unnoticed long, but the less we can make a spectacle of you at first, the better."

Bucky doesn't like the sound of 'spectacle,' but he's not sure what there is to do about it except go along with whatever T'Challa needs, given the situation. He nods.

[from_the_outside]

"No problem," says Sharon, who would like to sleep for a week. She blinks in astonishment at the speed and silence of the train that arrives, then steps inside when Nakia gestures them all in. Instead of sitting, she goes to a window, which means she has a perfect view of when the train arrows out from the mountain's interior and into the golden late afternoon light of Wakanda.

And Wakanda is beyond beautiful. "Holy shit," Sharon whispers, staring. There's a city that looks half-built and half-grown, gleaming and organic, spires reaching into the sky, and there are wide golden fields and woods that look wholly untouched. "Nakia, it's beautiful."

[nerves_of_ice]

"Welcome to my home," Nakia says, proudly. "I am so looking forward to showing you around, once you have rested."

She has every right to be proud, as far as Bucky's concerned. He'd gotten a good look as they flew in, as had Ross, but that doesn't stop him from moving to stand beside Sharon so he can drink in the view.

[from_the_outside]

She lets herself lean against him as she watches the countryside flash by, and almost wishes she believed in something bigger than herself so she could thank it.

But she has her loyal, stubborn boss and her sweet friend, and she has Bucky. She thinks of how desperate she'd been in Siberia, and can only imagine how he must have felt yesterday, what he would have been willing to do.

So she puts her head against his shoulder and keeps her eyes open to watch Wakanda flow past the train, and hopes he never has to feel that way again.

[marvel_npc]

* * * * *

He'd tracked Klaue well outside Busan, which wasn't a surprise. The surprise was that he'd tracked them to a... "FRIDAY, you sure about this?"

A pause, and then a voice comes coolly through the speakers. "I'm not sure I like your implications."

"Yeah," says Tony. "It's just that this is a junk yard."

"Your powers of observation are truly prodigious," FRIDAY says, dry. "What tipped you off? Was it the junk?"

"Just scan for Klaue," Tony orders, and watches as his HUD flickers. A humanoid shape appears, and Tony grins, bright and sharp. "Got him."

"Actually..." Data filters in through the HUD. "That isn't Klaue, boss."

"Then where's..." But his question is answered in the next second, as FRIDAY details a slumped body in front of the man. "Three dead," she whispers into his ear. "Be careful, boss."

"I'm always careful," Tony informs her, and streaks through the air. His landing makes the ground shudder, and he slowly stands, palm out, repulsor whining into life as he blocks the man from reaching Klaue's body. "Hey," he says, his voice mechanical through the mask's speakers. "Drop it."

[marvel_npc]

'People like us', Klaue had said. The man had been a damn fool, and ain't nothing about him that'd been at all like Erik 'Killmonger' Stevens, N'Jadaka, son of N'Jobu. Not that it matters now, though; he's just cooling meat, him and his crew, and the plane that's gonna lead to the next link in the chain's right there, and--

He turns around when the ground shakes. "Huh," he observes. "Wasn't expecting one of you to come along." He looks down at the gun in his hand, then back up at moneybags Iron Man. "You scared of a little thing like this?"

[marvel_npc]

"No," Tony admits. "But I hear it's the socially acceptable thing to do. Also, pretty sure you're a criminal."

FRIDAY highlights something in his field of vision; a tribal mask, tucked back inside a nondescript white van. "So why'd you shoot your buddy Klaue? I know he could be annoying, but that seems a little excessive."

[marvel_npc]

"Yeah? Why d'you say that?" he challenges. "'Cause I'm a Black man with a gun in hand, that it?"

He doesn't lower the gun, although he doesn't raise it either. He gives Stark polite disbelief.

"Man, that clown weren't no one's buddy. Figured you of all people should know that."

[marvel_npc]

"Because you match the description of the fourth member of a team where the other three are lying dead," Tony tells him. "Or was that not you who helped break Klaue out of Task Force containment in Busan?"

[marvel_npc]

"You gonna believe me if I say no?" He's pretty sure Stark won't, and the question is how long he can keep this dance up before they get down to it.

"So what happens now?" He's come too close to fail, but it all depends on him getting into Wakanda, preferably with Klaue's body and the recovered vibranium to make his case clean.

Although maybe if he can get Stark to steal it, that'd open a few other options too. Hmm.

[marvel_npc]

"I've got to be honest, I wasn't here for you," Tony tells him. "But if you were there, then you were part of a team that broke out a criminal and injured a member of the Task Force to boot. None of which looks great for you."

He cuts out his speakers and addresses FRIDAY. "Hey, get that General on the line, will you? I don't know what to do with this joker."

[marvel_npc]

He kicks Klaue's corpse in the side, causing it to roll forward and back a bit, and gives Stark a sharp look. "What I did was justice, man. But you don't know shit about that, do you?"

[marvel_npc]

"I'd ask how you figure that, but I don't really care," Tony tells him, as the connection chimes through. He kills the speakers again and lets FRIDAY scan the scene as the face of the Wakandan General appears in his HUD. "You have found Klaue?" she demands.

"Yeah," Tony says. "Sort of. I found Klaue's body, and the guy who shot him."

He sends the scan to her and waits as she studies it: Klaue's prone form, the mouthy guy with the gun. "He is unknown to me," she says, reluctant.

"Give me a sec," Tony tells her, and turns his speakers back on. "So, what's your stake in all this, huh?" he asks the man. "Who even are you?"

[marvel_npc]

"I'm a brother tryin' to do what's right," he challenges him. There're odd breaks and delays in the guy's questions, and he'd bet that he's talking to someone behind that mask of his. More of his Avenger cronies, he'd bet.

"This guy was a thief and a liar lookin' to do a deal with the CIA. I'm down here in the muck and the mess looking to get what he took back to the people he took it from, you feelin' me?"

[marvel_npc]

"Let me get this straight," Tony says, after a second. "You want to return the vibranium he stole to Wakanda?"

A few lines filter into view on his HUD. "Mr. Stevens?"